Intel 14nm Processors Facing Shortages, Increasing Prices

[PaulAlcorn]

Intel's 14nm lineup is suffering from increasing prices, spotty availability for some processors, unavailable chipsets, and complaints from Intel's partners.

Intel 14nm Processors Facing Shortages, Increasing Prices : Read more

 

[philipemaciel]

AMD having a lead in lithography, while Intel struggles.

Who would have imagined this scenario back in, say, early 2017!...

 

[termathor]

Happy I don't need any CPU upgrade but only GPU !
I'll go 1080ti.

 

[JamesSneed]

AMD needs to get there Zen2 server parts out ASAP. Take maximum advantage of having a better product in the server space while your competitor is at max capacity and being a full node behind on the process side as long as you can.

 

[AgentLozen]

Intel's been using the 14nm lithography for a few years now. It has to be matured to the point where yields are very high. Where is this shortage coming from?

I'm pretty sure Intel owns all of its own fabs. It doesn't have to compete with other companies for chips. They can just print their own. Have a bunch of Intel fabs gone down recently?

 

[hannibal]

They have moved production that was done to 22nm or even larger to 14nm because They were expecting to move cpus to 10nm... so They have booked old 14nm production to new products, but now They need that same production capasity to cpus also... and so we have production capasity shortage.

 

[none12345]

"Intel's been using the 14nm lithography for a few years now. It has to be matured to the point where yields are very high. Where is this shortage coming from?"

1) Increased core counts mean a bigger die, a bigger die means less dies per wafer. Wafers per month per factory are pretty much fixed, so that means less product to sell when they add more cores. They went from 4 to 6 and now to 8, that's a significant impact to number of cpus they can crank out. Its not just the difference between die sizes either, if you increase your die size by 30%, you decrease the number of chips you can get by more then 30% due to the fact that bigger dies come with an increased chance that there will be a defect on the die. As well as adding more waste per wafer, rectangular dies dont fit perfectly on a circle wafter, there will be less complete dies that fit near the edges.

2) Moving their chipsets from 22nm to 14nm. This further eats into 14nm capacity because they assumed they would be on 10nm by now for the cpus, so they would have spare 14nm capacity for the chipsets. That is not the case. For every cpu they sell, they pretty much need to sell 1 chipset die, its a smaller die, but that still adds up to a lot of 14nm wafers going to chipsets instead of cpus.

3) Increased demand, if this is real demand, and not just the above 2 issues, then that further exasperates the issue.

 

[gggplaya]

AMD having a lead in lithography, while Intel struggles.

Who would have imagined this scenario back in, say, early 2017!...

To be fair, TSMC has a lead in lithography, not AMD. AMD is contracting them to make their chips.

AMD's Fab which they spun off as global foundries to a major middle eastern investor, but is still a major owner, has given up on 7nM.

 

[AgentLozen]

You guys have offered some very reasonable explanations. Thank you.

 

[dextermat]

**facepalming** Always doing everything to gouge more money out of the user.

 

[cryoburner]

More like a "shortage" so they can justify increasing prices on their 9000-series CPUs? >_>

It does make sense that they would want to ramp up production on their upcoming processors though, rather than continuing to produce existing chips at full capacity just to have them sit on shelves once the new processors are out. It sounds like their next set of processors will likely be launching within a couple months, after all.

 

[jkubinak1339]

great article and informative -

 

[DookieDraws]

My wallet is facing shortages right now. So it don't matter to me what they do with their pricing!

 

[robert3892]

I thought AMD was getting it's 7nm CPU and GPU chips from TSMC as their financial announcement for last quarter said they were already sampling 7nm. You didn't mention that is your article.

 

[Zaporro]

Another company joins fake "Shortage" scam

It worked for RAM manufacturers so why others shouldnt try it? Spread rumors about "shortages". Have every idiotic "news site" repeat it 1000 times (a lie repeated enough times becomes a truth) and then double the prices just like that.

Thanks Tomshardware for taking part in spreading the shortage BS. First shilling for Nvidia with "just buy it" and now supporting Intel in their price fixing scheme.

 

[PaulAlcorn]

I thought AMD was getting it's 7nm CPU and GPU chips from TSMC as their financial announcement for last quarter said they were already sampling 7nm. You didn't mention that is your article.

From the last paragraph: "GlobalFoundries recently abandoned the 7nm node, which might eventually create challenges for AMD as it competes with Nvidia, Apple and Qualcomm for production capacity at TSMC."

 

[PaulAlcorn]

Please delete

 

[evald28]

Another reason to buy AMD . But I am waiting for a AMD 7nm and then this fairy tale about shortages will be past and i will choose between AMD and newest intels. I guess I will buy AMD, especialy with such greed movements of intel. Worse situation is in GPU, as Nvidia had lead over AMD but they new series (especialy prices) looks like scam. Hope this will change before I will buy PC